The invention relates generally to the field of dispensing systems, and in particular to dispensing systems for the controlled dispensing of medical supply items, including pharmaceutical items. More particularly, the invention provides for the dispensing of items from an auxiliary storage location based on information input into a medical supply dispensing cabinet.
A relatively recent advancement in inventory practices within health care facilities is the use of medical supply cabinets that may be disposed at various strategic locations within the health care facility. In this way, the medical supply items may be stored at locations which are closer to the patients who need them. Exemplary dispensing units for dispensing medical supply items, including pharmaceuticals, are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,745,366, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,805,455; 08/320,588, filed Oct. 11, 1995; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,805,456, U.S. Pat. No. 5,905,653, U.S. Pat. No. 6,039,467; and 08/985,034, filed Dec. 4, 1997; and PCT Application Nos. 94/07841 and 95/01025. The complete disclosures of all these references are herein incorporated by reference in their entirety.
Such dispensing units may include the use of item buttons which are disposed near where the items are stored within the dispensing unit. The item buttons are touched to record the removal or addition of items to or from the dispensing unit. The use of such item buttons has proved to be tremendously successful in the health care industry.
Due to their bulky nature, some medical supply items are ill suited for storage in a dispensing unit designed to hold relatively small medical supply items or pharmaceuticals. Such items can include, for example, crutches, adult diapers, "egg crate" foam pads, bed pans, and the like. Often, these items are stored in a storage room where maintenance of accurate inventories is difficult. Some have proposed the placement of a bar code label on the packaging of such items and the use of a bar code wand to record removal of the items. However, if the packaging is in the open, it is easy for the caregiver to remove the items without following bar code wanding procedures. As such, these procedures are often bypassed. Proper wanding procedures may also not be followed if the staff are not properly trained. As a result, such systems often fail to maintain an accurate accounting of inventory levels.
Hence, it would be desirable to provide a way to securely store large and/or bulky items while also providing a convenient way to maintain an accurate accounting of inventory levels. It would be particularly desirable to provide ways to easily and conveniently record the transfer of items to or from such storage locations. It would be further desirable if the techniques employed to store the large and bulky items could be compatible with existing dispensing units so that minimal modifications would need to be made in order to implement the techniques.